


Dreams Come True

by Higgles123



Category: Child 44 (2014)
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Family, Love, Marriage, baby loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27196010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higgles123/pseuds/Higgles123
Summary: Leo and his wife are going to have a baby, but her past trauma means she's not happy.
Relationships: Leo Demidov/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	Dreams Come True

“I’m scared, Leo.”

His wife’s eyes were dark pools of caramel; the colour of creme brûlée, and in that moment they were brimming with tears that she was desperately trying not to shed.

“Ana, everything will be alright,” he squeezed her hand, brushing his thumb across her knuckles.

“We were always so careful. How can this have happened?”

“We’re married and even though you might not think it now, this will be a good thing,”

“How can you say that?” she turned to look at him in horror. “Do you not remember that day Leo?”

Of course he remembered.

_The joys of communal living were that everyone knew everyone else’s business. If people were fighting, everyone could hear them. If people were making love, everyone could hear them. Throughout the day and most of the night, Anastasia’s mother had been in labour with her fifth child, so of course, everyone could hear her. But the one sound that they never heard was that angry wail of newborn life; a declaration of their arrival from a small human. They waited and waited, going about their own lives yet with an ear out for the sound that never came._

_It was in the early hours of the morning when Leo heard a gentle knock on the front door. His parents were already sleeping but he had promised Anastasia that he would not close his eyes until she came to inform him about her new brother or sister. When he saw her stood in the doorway, her hands and her dress was covered in crimson and he recognised the metallic smell for what it was._

_“She’s gone,” Anastasia whispered numbly. “They’re both gone.”_

_Her eyes were empty; void of anything and it frightened Leo because her eyes were the windows to her soul. But perhaps it was because he had not witnessed what she had that he hadn’t realised that momentarily, Anastasia’s soul had left her. It had left her and who knew when it would come back. She didn’t say anything else. Leo wasn’t even sure that she could say anything else in the minutes that followed but he didn’t press her. Instead, he filled up the metal tub that his mother used to wash in and when the water was hot enough he led her to it. She made no move to undress; she just stood there like a statue as her brain tried to come to terms with her loss. Leo eyed her questioningly as he began to unbutton her stained dress, yanking it off when she gave an almost imperceptible nod. Her slip was ruined as well and she lifted her arms dutifully when he pulled that up over her head as well, and it took all of Leo’s teenage male resolve not to look at the nakedness of the girl he was head over heels in love with. But as he took her hand to help her into the tub, the congealed blood beneath her nails and staining her soft skin was enough to rid him of any lewd thoughts he might have had at her bare body. Sitting in the tub, she pulled her knees up to her chest and said nothing as Leo washed her hair with surprising gentleness. When he rinsed the shampoo from her hair, Anastasia was suddenly reminded of the same way her mother used to shield her eyes as a child so that the soap wouldn’t sting them. She let out a strangled choke and finally the tears came._

_“It’s alright,” Leo’s arms were around her; the water on her body seeping through his thin pyjamas. “Come on now, it’s alright.”_

_She clutched at his top and buried her face into his chest, trying to cry as quietly as she could lest she wake his parents, and her entire body shook with the force of her grief. Her heart felt like it was breaking into so many pieces that it could never be fixed again. Leo smelt familiar; comforting and she clung to that comfort as she cried until she couldn’t cry anymore._

_“The water’s cold,” Leo murmured sometime later; long after her tears had subsided._

_“It was a girl,” Anastasia’s quiet voice was croaky. “I waited sixteen years for a sister and I finally got one. She was so tiny; like a little doll. She had Mama’s nose but the dimple in Papa’s chin. And all of her hair; it was so soft and dark like mine. She just looked like she was sleeping when she came out. Her skin was so cold and pale but she looked perfect. Do you remember my old cat, Stripes? And do you remember when she had her kittens and the smallest one didn’t survive? Stripes cried over the kitten’s little body until Papa took it away, but the sound she made was so raw that I couldn’t stop thinking about it for weeks. That’s exactly how Mama sounded when the midwife told her the baby wasn’t living; as though someone had cut out her heart right before her very eyes._

_And then the bleeding started. One minute Mama was crying and then the next she went pale; so pale that she was like the snow that falls in the winter. The midwife pulled back the bedsheet and it was everywhere. I couldn’t stop looking at it. As strange as it sounds it was mesmerising; it was like nothing I’d ever seen. I mean, I’ve seen blood before but not like that. It was so dark and the way it just pooled on the mattress was like… well, I don’t know. The next minute the midwife was screaming at me to help her try and stop the bleeding, but every towel I held was soaked within minutes. I don’t even remember the moment she took her last breath, Leo. All I remember is holding a towel soaked with her blood and then my Papa came in wailing and shaking her as if she might suddenly come back alive again. And then I was here. With you.”_

_Leo swallowed the lump in his throat, not knowing what to say. It was strange really because he always knew what to say to Anastasia. She stood up suddenly, the cold water dripping from her body and when she stepped out of the tub, Leo wrapped a towel around her and pulled her against him._

_“Can I stay here with you tonight, Leo?” she looked up at him, droplets coating her long eyelashes. “I just… I can’t go back there tonight. I can’t do it.”_

_“You can stay,” Leo nodded. “You can take my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa.”_

_“No. I want you to sleep in bed with me,” she took his hand. “I don’t want to be on my own. I want to be with you, Leo. Please.”_

_He wouldn’t deny her. He_ couldn’t. _Not when she needed him the most. So Leo held her that night; the two of them squashed up together in his rickety single bed. Her slumber was fitful; broken by episodes of crying, but still he held her. He was going to hold onto her forever._

“It won’t be like your mother,” Leo murmured.

“You don’t know that,” Anastasia shook her head.

“Ana,” he cupped her face. “Things are better these days. In the last ten years look how far medicine has come. You will have the best midwife I can find and you will have the baby in the hospital where there are doctors and everything you could need.”

“I’m scared, Leo,” she repeated.

“I know, _zaika_ ,” he pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head. He would never admit it but he was scared too. “But everything will be ok. In seven months from now we will be holding our baby and we will be happy. And I will be with you every step of the way.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

_Seven and a half months later_

At two weeks old, Alexander Demidov had his mother’s dark hair and his father’s serious face. Despite Anastasia’s intense anxiety for the entirety of her rather easy pregnancy, she had delivered her son with no complications whatsoever and was entirely smitten by him.

Leo opened his eyes as the baby stirred in the bassinet beside their bed. He always did this; wriggled around and waved his angry little fists for a few moments before the crying began. Leo’s bare feet padded across the bedroom floor and when he reached the bassinet, he scooped up his tiny son in his arms and smiled when the infant screwed up his face before passing wind.

“You definitely get that from your Mama.”

“I heard that, Leo,” Anastasia grumbled from the bed as she sat up and began to unbutton her nightdress.

Grinning, Leo climbed into bed and handed Alexander to his mother where he didn’t even the opportunity to cry at being hungry before he latched onto Anastasia’s nipple and began to suckle in earnest.

“Anyone would think he’s never eaten before,” Anastasia chuckled. “ _That_ he most definitely gets from you.”

Leo couldn’t tear his eyes from his son. The way his tiny hand gripped at his mother’s breast as though he was terrified his meal might be torn away from him too soon; his full, pouty lips suckling quickly. Leo had never even thought he would have children because from the very day he told Anastasia that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, she had been truthful about not wanting to end up like her mother. He understood why she didn’t want to risk having a child and they had spoken of adopting one day instead. But now, in the dark of their bedroom, watching his wife feed their child, Leo knew this was always meant to be.

The dream he had never even realised he desired had come true.


End file.
